NASA Hands Over ISS Research to Non-Profit CASIS

The space agency will pay the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space up to $15 million a year to manage scientific research on the U.S. parts of the space station.

NASA this week finalized its deal with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to hand over the reins on the management of U.S. science research on the International Space Station.

The space agency selected CASIS for those duties in July and on Friday announced that it will pay the non-profit group up to $15 million a year to handle science affairs on the American parts of the ISS.

"The station is the centerpiece of our human spaceflight activities for the coming years," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement, as reported by Space.com. "This cooperative agreement allows us to expand the station's use and achieve its fullest potential so we can reach destinations farther in the solar system and improve life on Earth."

The outsourcing of ISS science research is another indicator that NASA is an organization in transition away from active management of manned spaceflight. The space agency oversaw the last mission of its storied space shuttle fleet this summer and commemorated the official end of the shuttle program earlier in September.

With no space shuttles to ferry astronauts to the ISS, that means that such missions rely exclusively on Russia's Soyuz rockets. The late August crash of an unmanned spacecraft using a Soyuz rocket to reach the orbiting space lab with supplies demonstrated the drawbacks of relying on just one means of sending astronauts into orbitwhen the current crew of six departs the ISS before the end of 2011, there's a chance the station could wind up empty for a time.

If there are no astronauts aboard the ISS to conduct research for an extended period, CASIS could find the early going of its contract with NASA frustrating, to say the least. However, the $100 billion space has now been completed and is expected to be operational for at least another nine years, until 2020.

NASA hopes to make the most of that time, charging CASIS with developing and managing research in the American-built portions of the ISS, which were named a U.S. national laboratory in 2005. The space agency's broad agenda is to pursue research that spurs innovations that have applications on Earth, according to Space.com.

How much research can be conducted will depend upon how many astronauts are aboard the space station. A full contingent on the ISS consists of two three-man crews. If the station is left empty, as could be the case if officials don't clear Soyuz rockets in time to replace the six astronauts currently aboard, it would seriously diminish the amount and types of research that can be done.

CASIS will be headquartered at the Space Life Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA officials said.

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle and Japan Times, among other newspapers and periodicals.
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